From among the representatives of non-Russian nationalities in the Duma, Poles, Belorussians, Latvians and Estonians, Lithuanians, Tatars, Armenians, Bashkirs, Kirghiz, and Ukrainians spoke on the agrarian question. Here is how they set forth their point of view.

The Narodnik{111} Dmowski spoke in the II Duma "on behalf of the Poles – representatives of the Kingdom of Poland and the western part of the state adjacent to it" (742): "although our agrarian relations already represent a transition to West European relations, nevertheless the agrarian question exists among us, and land shortage is a sore in our life. One of the first points of our social program is an increase in the area of peasant land ownership" (743).

"If we in the K. P. had major agrarian disturbances in the form of seizure of landowner lands, they occurred only in the eastern part, namely in the Włodawa district, where the peasants were told that they, as Orthodox, would be allotted landowner land. These disturbances arose only among the Orthodox population" (745).

…"Here (in the K. P.) the land question, like all other social reforms… can be arranged, in accordance with the demands of life, only by an assembly of representatives of the region – only by an autonomous Sejm" (747).

This speech of the Narodnik Pole provoked savage attacks from right-wing Belorussian peasants (Gavrilchik, of Minsk province, Shimansky, Grudinsky) on Polish landowners, and Bishop Evlogy, naturally, seized upon this and delivered a Jesuitically-police speech in the spirit of Russian policy of 1863 concerning the oppression of Russian peasants by Polish landowners (26th session, April 12).

"How cleverly contrived!" – replied the Narodnik Grabsky (32nd session, May 3). "The peasants will receive land; Russian landowners will keep their lands; the peasants will, as in the good old days, support the old regime, and the Poles will receive due punishment for having spoken of a Polish Sejm" (62). And the speaker, passionately exposing all the shameless demagogy of the Russian government, demanded "the transfer to the Polish Sejm of the decision on our agrarian reform" (75).

We may add to this that the aforementioned peasants demanded additional allotment on the basis of ownership (for example, p. 1811). And in the I Duma the Polish and western peasants, demanding land, spoke out in favor of ownership. "I am a land-poor peasant of Lublin province," said Nakonechny on June 1, 1906. "In Poland too, compulsory expropriation is necessary. Better 1 desyatina forever than 5 for an indefinite time" (881–882). Poniatowski (of Volhynia province) said the same on behalf of the Western region (May 19, p. 501), and Trasun from Vitebsk province (418, May 16, 1906). Girnus (of Suwałki province) expressed himself against one all-imperial land fund and in favor of local land funds (June 1, 1906, p. 879). Count Tyszkiewicz declared at that time that he regarded the idea of forming a national fund as "impractical and unsafe" (874). Stetsky spoke similarly (May 24, 1906, pp. 613–614: for personal ownership against rental).

From the Baltic region, Yurashevsky (of Kurland province) spoke in the II Duma, demanding the abolition of feudal privileges of large landowners (May 16, 1907, p. 670) and the expropriation of landowner lands exceeding a defined norm. "Recognizing that in the Baltic region present-day culture developed on the basis of the principle of private ownership, or hereditary rental, practiced there, nevertheless, one must come to the conclusion that for further regulation of agricultural relations, it is necessary immediately to introduce self-government in the Baltic region on broadly democratic principles, which could correctly resolve this question" (672).

The representative of Estonia province, the Progressist Jurinet, submitted a separate project for Estonia province (47th session, May 26, 1907, p. 1210). He speaks out in favor of a "compromise" (1213) – for "hereditary or perpetual rental" (1214). "He who uses the land, who uses it better, he will have the land in his hands" (ibid.). Demanding compulsory expropriation in this sense, Jurinet rejects the confiscation of land (1215). In the I Duma, Chaks (of Kurland province) demanded the transfer to peasants of church (pastoral) lands, exclusive of landowner lands (4th session, May 4, 1906, p. 195). Tenison (of Livonia province) agreed to vote for an address, that is, for compulsory expropriation, finding that "all adherents of individualization of the land" (ibid., p. 209) could do this. Kreuzberg (of Kurland province) on behalf of the Kurland peasantry demanded "expropriation of latifundia" and the allotment of land to the landless and land-poor, without fail "on the basis of ownership" (12th session, May 19, 1906, p. 500). Rütli (of Livonia province) demanded compulsory expropriation, etc. "As for the conversion of land into a state fund," he said, "our peasants understand well that this is a new enserfment of the peasants. We must therefore defend small peasant farming, the productivity of labor and protect it from the encroachments of capitalism. Thus, if we convert the lands into a state fund, we will create the most enormous capitalism" (497, same date). Ozolin (of Livonia province) on behalf of the Latvian peasants spoke out for compulsory expropriation and ownership; decisively against an all-state land fund, he admits only local regional funds (13th session, May 23, 1906, p. 564).

Leonas, "representative from Suwałki province, namely from the Lithuanian nationality" (39th session, May 16, 1907, p. 654), spoke out for the plan of the Constitutional Democratic party, to which he belongs. Another Lithuanian autonomist from the same province, Bulat, joined the Trudoviks, but postponed the decision regarding redemption and so forth until the matter was discussed by local land committees (p. 651, ibid.). Povilaitis (of Kovno province) on behalf of "the Duma group of Social-Democrats of Lithuania" (ibid., p. 681, appendix) submitted a precisely formulated agrarian program of this group, coinciding with our RSDLP program, with the difference that "the local land fund within the limits of Lithuania" is transferred to the disposition of "the organ of autonomous self-government of Lithuania" (ibid., p. 2).

On behalf of the Muslim group, Khan Khoysky spoke in the II Duma (of Elisavetpol province): "We, Moslems, constituting more than 20 million of the total population of the Russian state, listen with the same attentiveness to all the vicissitudes of the agrarian question and await with the same impatience its satisfactory resolution" (20th session, April 2, 1907, p. 1499). On behalf of the Muslim group, the speaker agrees with Kutler, speaking out in favor of compulsory expropriation on the basis of fair appraisal (1502). "But where should these expropriated lands go? In this respect, the Muslim group finds that the expropriated lands should constitute not an all-state land fund, but a regional land fund within the limits of each given region" (1503). "Representative of the Crimean Tatars," deputy Mediev (of Tauride province), in a passionate revolutionary speech, speaks out for "land and freedom." "The longer the debate continues, the more clearly emerges before us the demand of the people – that the land should be used by he who labors upon it" (24th session, April 9, 1907, p. 1789). The speaker points out "how in our borderlands there arose a sacred ownership of land" (1792), how the Bashkir lands were plundered, ministers and actual state councillors, heads of gendarmerie administrations received 2–6 thousand desyatinas each. He cites a mandate from "Tatar brethren," complaining of the plundering of waqf lands{112}. He quotes the answer of the Turkestan governor-general to a Tatar, dated December 15, 1906, that only persons of Christian faith could resettle on state lands. "Does not there waft from these documents something stale, something of the Arakcheev barbarism of the past century?" (1794).

From the Caucasian peasants – apart from our party Social-Democrats, of whom we speak below – the aforementioned Sagatelyan (of Erivan province) spoke, standing on the viewpoint of the Socialist-Revolutionaries. Another representative of the "Dashnaksutyun" party, Ter-Avetikyantz (of Elisavetpol province), spoke in the same spirit: "land on the basis of communal ownership should belong to the laborers, that is, to the working people and to none other" (39th session, May 16, 1907, p. 644). "I, on behalf of all the Caucasian peasantry, declare… in the decisive moment all the Caucasian peasantry will go hand in hand with its elder brother – the Russian peasantry – and will win for itself land and freedom" (646). Eldarkhanов "on behalf of his constituents – the natives of Terek region – petitions that the plundering of natural riches be halted pending the resolution of the agrarian question" (32nd session, May 3, 1907, p. 78), and it is the government that plunders the lands, taking away the best part of the highland zone, robbing the lands of the Kumyk people, making claims on the mineral wealth (apparently this was before Plekhanov's and John's Stockholm lecture on the inaccessibility of municipalized lands to non-democratic state power).

On behalf of the Bashkirs, deputy Khasanov (of Ufa province) reminds us of the government's plundering of 2 million desyatinas of land and demands that these lands "be taken back" (39th session, May 16, 1907, p. 641). The same was demanded by the Ufa deputy of the I Duma, Syrtlanov (20th session, June 2, 1906, p. 923). On behalf of the Kirghiz-Kaisak people, deputy Karataev spoke in the II Duma (of Uralsk region): "We, Kirghiz-Kaisaks… deeply understand and feel the land hunger of our peasant brothers, we are ready willingly to make space" (39th session, p. 673), but "there is very little surplus land," and "resettlement at present is bound up with the expulsion of the Kirghiz-Kaisak people"… "they are expelling Kirghiz not from lands, but from their dwellings" (675). "Kirghiz-Kaisaks always sympathize with all opposition factions" (675).

On behalf of the Ukrainian faction, the Cossack Saiko of Poltava province spoke in the II Duma on March 29, 1907. He cited a Cossack song: "Hey, Tsarina Catherine, what have you done? The wide steppe, the gay land you gave away to the pans. Hey, Tsarina Catherine, have mercy on us, give back the land, the gay land with dark groves," and joined the Trudoviks, demanding only that in § 2 of the project of the 104 one replace the words "all-national land fund" with the words: "regional national (sic!) land fund, to serve as the basis for socialist organization." "The Ukrainian faction considers private ownership of land the greatest injustice in the world" (1318).

In the first Duma, the Poltava deputy Chizhevsky declared: "I, as an ardent supporter of the autonomy idea, as an ardent supporter, in particular, of the autonomy of Ukraine, would very much wish that the agrarian question be resolved by my people, that the agrarian question be resolved by separate autonomous units, within the autonomous structure of our state, which appears to me as an ideal" (14th session, May 24, 1906, p. 618). But at the same time, this Ukrainian autonomist recognizes the absolute necessity of a state land fund, clarifying in this process a question confused by our "municipalists." "We must firmly and positively establish the principle," said Chizhevsky, "that the administration of the lands of the state land fund should belong exclusively to local self-governing zemstvo or autonomous units, when they arise. True, what meaning could the name 'state land fund' then have if in all particular cases it will be administered by local self-governments? It seems to me the meaning is enormous. First of all… part of the state fund should be at the disposal of the central government… our all-state colonization fund… Secondly, the meaning of establishing a state fund and the meaning of such a name for it flows from the fact that although local institutions will be free to administer this fund in their localities, still within certain limits" (620). This petty bourgeois autonomist understands the significance of state power in a society with centralized economic development far better than our Menshevik Social-Democrats.

By the way. Speaking of Chizhevsky's speech, one cannot pass over his criticism of "norms." "Labor norm – this is empty sound," he says directly, pointing to the diversity of agricultural conditions and rejecting on the same basis the "consumer" norm. "It seems to me that peasants should be allotted land not according to some norm, but in the amount of the available supply… One should give the peasants all that can be given in the given locality," – for example, in Poltava province "expropriate land from all landowners, leaving an average of 50 desyatinas as a maximum" (621). Is it surprising that the Kadets babble about norms in order to conceal their plans for the actual extent of expropriation? Chizhevsky, criticizing the Kadets, does not yet understand this[129].

The conclusion from our survey of Duma speeches by the "nationals" on the agrarian question is clear. These speeches completely confirmed what I said against Maslov in the pamphlet "The Revision, etc." on p. 18 (of the first edition) on the question of the relationship between municipalization and the rights of nationalities, namely, that this is a political question, exhausted by the political part of our program and only from petty bourgeois provincialism intruded into the agrarian program[130].

The Mensheviks at Stockholm labored with comic zeal to "purify municipalization from nationalization" (the words of the Menshevik Nosedsky in the "Protocols" of the Stockholm Congress, p. 146). "Certain historical regions, such as, for example, Poland, Lithuania," said Nosedsky, "coincide with national territories, and the transfer of land to these regions could serve as the soil on which nationalist-federalist tendencies will develop successfully, which would again, in essence, transform municipalization into nationalization by parts." And so Nosedsky and Dan carried through and did carry through an amendment: instead of the words "self-governing large regional organizations" in Maslov's project, substitute the words "large organs of local self-government, uniting urban and rural circuits."

A clever "purification of municipalization from nationalization," one must admit. Replace one word with another – is it not clear that from this comes of itself a reshuffling of the "historical regions"?

No, gentlemen, you will not strike out from municipalization the "nationalist-federalist" stupidity inherent in it by any replacement of words. The Second Duma showed that in practice the "municipalizing" idea only served the nationalist tendencies of various groups of the bourgeoisie. Only these groups, if we except the right-wing Cossack Karaulov, "took under their protection" various "regional" and "territorial" funds. In doing so, the nationals eliminated the agrarian content of provincialization (for in fact Maslov "gives" lands to provinces, not to "municipalities," so that the word provincialization is more precise): nothing should be predetermined, everything should be left to autonomous Sejms or regional and similar self-governments, and the question of redemption and the question of ownership, etc. The result was the most complete confirmation of my words: "the law on the zemstvo-ization of Transcaucasian lands will have to be issued in any case by the Petersburg constituent assembly, because Maslov certainly does not wish to grant any borderland the freedom to preserve landowner land ownership" ("The Revision," p. 18)[131].

So, events confirmed that the defense of municipalization by considerations about the agreement or disagreement of nationalities is a vulgar argument. The municipalization of our program turned out to be in contradiction with the definitely declared opinion of quite diverse nationalities.

Events confirmed that in practice municipalization serves not to guide the mass peasant movement on an all-national scale, but to fragment this movement into provincial and national rivulets. From the idea of Maslov's regional funds, life absorbed only the national-autonomist "regionalism."

The "nationals" stand somewhat apart from our agrarian question. Many non-Russian nationalities do not have an independent peasant movement at the center of revolution, as we do. Therefore, it is quite natural that in their programs the "nationals" often keep somewhat apart from the Russian agrarian question. "Our," so to speak, "house is on the edge, we are on our own." From the side of nationalist bourgeoisie and petty bourgeoisie, such a viewpoint is inevitable.

From the side of the proletariat, it is impermissible, and our program precisely in this impermissible bourgeois nationalism actually falls. As the "nationals," at best, only attach themselves to the all-Russian movement, without setting themselves the goal of multiplying tenfold its strength by unification, by concentration of the movement, so the Mensheviks build a program attached to the peasant revolution, instead of giving a program that guides the revolution, that consolidates it and pushes it further. Municipalization – not a slogan of the peasant revolution, but an invented plan of petty bourgeois reformism, from the outside being adapted in the corner of the revolution.

The Social-Democratic proletariat cannot change its program depending on whether individual nationalities "agree" or not. Our task is to consolidate and concentrate the movement, by propagandizing the best path, the best land arrangement in bourgeois society, by struggling against the force of tradition, prejudices, inert provincialism. The "disagreement" of small peasants with the socialization of land cannot change our program of socialist revolution. It can only make us prefer to act by example. So too with the nationalization of land in a bourgeois revolution. No "disagreement" with it on the part of this or that nationality or nationalities can make us change our doctrine that it lies in the interests of all the people to achieve the most complete liberation from medieval land ownership and the abolition of private ownership of land. The "disagreement" of considerable strata of the laboring mass of this or that nationality will make us prefer to operate by means of example rather than any other means of persuasion. The nationalization of the colonization fund, the nationalization of forests, the nationalization of all land in central Russia cannot long coexist with private ownership of land within the limits of this or that part of the state (once the reason for the unification of this state is truly the basic stream of economic evolution). Either one system or the other must prevail. Experience will decide this. Our task is to take care to clarify to the people the conditions most favorable to the proletariat and to the laboring masses of a capitalistically developing country.